Where Wars Go to Die: The Forgotten Literature of World War I

by W.D. Wetherell (Editor)

As the world commemorates the hundredth anniversary of World War I, the literary canon of the war has consolidated around the memoirs written in the years after the Armistice by soldier-writers who served in the trenches. Another kind of Great War literature has been almost entirely the books written and published during the war by the greatest English, American, French, and German writers at work—books that show us how the best, most influential writers responded to an overpowering human and cultural catastrophe.

Where Wars Go to The Forgotten Literature of World War I explores this little-known cache of contemporary writings by the greatest novelists, poets, playwrights, and essayists of the war years, examining their interpretations and responses, weaving excerpts and quotations from their books into a narrative that focuses on the various ways civilian writers responded to an overwhelming historical reality.

The authors whose war writings are presented include George Bernard Shaw, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, H. G. Wells, Edith Wharton, Maurice Maeterlinck, Henri Bergson, W. E. B. Du Bois, Romain Rolland, Thomas Mann, Thomas Hardy, May Sinclair, W. B. Yeats, Ring Lardner, Reinhold Niebuhr, and dozens more of equal stature.

Intended for the general reader as much as the specialist, Where Wars Go to Die breaks important new ground in the history and literature of World War I.

Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Genres: World War I

344 pages, Hardcover

First published February 2, 2016

About the author

Walter D. Wetherell is the author of eleven previous works of fiction and nonfiction. He has received two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, two O. Henry Awards, the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, and, most recently, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Strauss Living Award. He lives in Lyme, New Hampshire, with his wife and two children. His latest novel is A Century of November.

Reviews

[Paul Womack · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine collection of war writings that cover the spectrum from outright propaganda to protest to grief and pulp novels. Offers a great resource for further reading and insights that suggest ways to understand the borrow and confusion of war.